Too many ( )

Listening to diary entries did not keep my attention. Stopped less than 10% in.

These diaries proved to be marginally worth the considerable investment of time necessary to plow through them. The beloved actor can be pretty interesting when he's discussing his approach to acting a role or directing a play, and his comments on others' acting and directing, or reviews of movies and plays are quite interesting. The book also contains quite a bit of tittle-tattle about his jetsetting and meetings with people you probably haven't heard about to discuss technical problems or contract minutiae, and for the most part these are much less profitable. These individuals are briefly identified in footnotes, but only once, and if they reappear, as they usually seem to do, they are difficult to remember. The front matter was annoyingly silent as to whether these are the complete diaries or excerpts; if the former, they could profitably been whittled down to size without losing much of general interest. ( )

Madly Deeply is a rare invitation into the mind of Alan Rickman—one of the most magnetic, beloved performers of our time.

From his breakout role in Die Hard to his outstanding, multifaceted performances in the Harry Potter films, Galaxy Quest, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and more, Alan Rickman cemented his legacy as a world-class actor. His air of dignity, his sonorous voice, and the knowing wit he brought to each role continue to captivate audiences today.

But Rickman’s ability to breathe life into projects wasn't confined to just his performances. As you'll find, Rickman's diaries detail the extraordinary and the ordinary, flitting between worldly and witty and gossipy, while remaining utterly candid throughout. He takes us inside his home, on trips with friends across the globe, and on the sets of films and plays ranging from Sense and Sensibility, to Noël Coward's Private Lives, to the final film he directed, A Little Chaos.

Running from 1993 to his death in 2016, the diaries provide singular insight into Rickman's public and private life. Reading them is like listening to Rickman chatting to a close companion. Meet Rickman the consummate professional actor, but also the friend, the traveler, the fan, the director, the enthusiast; in short, the man beyond the icon.

Madly, Deeply features a photo insert, a foreword by Emma Thompson, and an afterword by Rima Horton. ( )

At one point, Alan Rickman looks back over his diary entries and wonders if, at some point, he won’t be able to decode them and recall “the sharp thoughts hidden between the safer lines.” If he, the author, worried about this, what hope have we, the reader? Which is to say, I didn’t get every cryptic reference.
I did catch enough to get a picture of the man. The persona in these pages is not as different from the public perception of him as Emma Thompson’s affectionate Foreword would have us believe; even she concedes he was “blissfully contradictory.” He demanded much from himself and others and could be distant and sardonic when it wasn’t forthcoming. But there was much more to him, or he wouldn’t have had the lifelong friendships so important to him. He was not really Hans Gruber or the Sheriff of Nottingham. More like Snape, perhaps, if any of the roles he was famed for express the person underneath.
Those looking for a Hollywood tell-all will be disappointed to know there is nothing about who slept with whom. Instead, we find someone passionate about the craft of acting, which, at its best, can be a “portal to a greater understanding of what it means to be human,” as Alan Taylor notes in his Introduction. Rickman could admire his colleagues yet be critical of poor preparation, upstaging, and not giving enough of oneself that the others in a scene had something to play off.
In general, he seems to enjoy working on stage more than film, with its emphasis on the shot rather than the scene. The word “process” appears frequently. Yet his notes on his stage experiences are full of critical remarks about directors who either dictate what they want and stifle the imagination of the cast or are so indecisive they fail to direct. Worse are the moneymen—the producers and distributors—who tinker with the script before and during production and fiddle with the finished product to make it more marketable (that is, more like dozens of other films). Other irritations are press conferences, where he is asked the same six questions worldwide, and reviews, particularly those that seem to have been written before seeing the show.
Rickman’s interest in theater dates back to his school days, an interest he shared with his longtime partner, Rima Horton. She employed her acting skills on a different stage, politics, while Rickman went to art school. One of the delights of this book is the reproduction of sample pages, more illustration than text.
The diary also reflects a life of too much alcohol, too little sleep, and a globe-trotting itinerary that sounds glamorous to those who don’t have to live through it. Add in on-set injuries and haphazard meals. It’s no wonder that as the book progresses, it becomes increasingly a necrology until Rickman, too, receives the diagnosis that initiates his final months. The poignant conclusion of the story is left to Rima Horton to recount.
Now to find out where I can see The Winter Guest, Galaxy Quest, In Search of John Gissing, and some other Rickman performances I’ve failed to catch. ( )